Dear Members:

First of all, I would like you all to have a happy new year with your family in 2013.

Our website for the Oto-Rhino-Laryngological(ORL) Society of Japan has been renewed, thanks to the great efforts of the previous public relations committee.
As you can see, new website looks refreshed in shape and fascinating as well. As the current public relations committee is still making an effort to further establish our website, so we would like you to address your sincere advice with detailed comments on it.

For the sake of people in Japan, the ORL Society of Japan has to keep improving the quality of otorhinolaryngologists and head and neck surgeons. To ensure better board-certified otorhinolaryngologists, we are engaged in the preparation for further advancements. The main issue is to change our strategy, from our current way based on Board-Certified Otorhinolaryngologists' training centers, to the upcoming program-based education of board-certified otorhinolaryngologists. Our definition of a board-certified otorhinolaryngologist is a doctor who can perform standard ENT medical procedures, but not a super doctor with God-hands. Minimum requirements to the candidates for board-certified otorhinolaryngologists (residents), are as follows; for example, the number of experienced surgeries, mandatory clinical examinations, and patients being taken care. Residents should fulfill these minimum requirements during determined period of time , otherwise they could not be qualified for taking an examination for board-certified otorhinolaryngologists. Once the requirements for the actual clinical achievements of each resident in four years is confirmed, a cooperation of multi-training centers is inevitably essential, in order to develop the necessary program. In United States of America, where the board-certified otorhinolaryngologist system is well established, any hospitals even with a good reputation have to unite with five to eight institutions, to participate with ENT programs and are limited to welcome a maximum four to five residents in each year. Taking this perspective into our consideration, 100 programs, at the most, would be appropriate in Japan, depending on a little less than 200 residents applying for the program of a board-certified otorhinolaryngologists.

I am sure that The ORL Society of Japan still possesses a large number of undertakings and problems to be completed or overcome. So I do apologize for not covering all of them at this occasion, because of the limited pages prepared.

Finally, I would like herein to remind you of the very important information about our financial situation. The ORL Society of Japan's financial situation has recently become very tough and actually fell into deficit finance on a single-year basis for the past several years. This unbalanced budget can be attributed to many reasons, such as accumulating various undertakings with increasing expenditure and so on. Although each committee in ORL of Japan has been actively working on its mission, we had a total number of 136 members among the board of directors and various committees at 8 years ago. Therefore, we made an effort to reduce the number of active members with 104 members in the current term of the board of directors. However, this drastic reduction in the number of committee members might bring us the serious shortage of activities. So, no further reduction in number of committee members could be anticipated.
At the very beginning of New Year 2013, I don't like to tell you such a gloomy words on our financial situation. But, nevertheless, would you please accept our on-going tough financial situation and take the possible raising of annual membership due into your consideration in the nearest future ?

Sincerely yours,

Toshiaki Yagi, MD,
Chairman, Board of Directors
The Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Society of Japan, Inc.

(January 7^th, 2013)